Chapter 11 - Meet Gerald (TCOK)
Spewing up muddy water, Tubba came to his senses, a pounding headache echoing through his body. Squinting in the bright sunlight, his body lying on it’s side on some hard, wooden surface, he rolled over onto his belly and puked out more of the seawater he had swallowed. Dazed, Tubba pushed himself on to his knees, staring directly at the ground, associating the wooden surface he was lying on with planks of gnarled, sturdy, old wood. Feeling his senses come to him, Tubba immediately realized that he was far from alone. Rather, he was being ringed by shapes of various sizes, species and ages. Trying to stagger to his feet, he felt a large hand apply a force on to his shell, keeping him resting on to the wooden planks of the ship. “Steady on, son. You’re lucky to be alive,” a deep, rumbling voice echoed. “I second that!” A higher, female voice declared, causing Tubba to wince away. His headache was pounding. “Oops, sorry,” the voice apologized. Closing his eyes tightly, Tubba tried to focus on the constitution of his body. Clenching his hands into a fist and unclenching them told him that his hands were normal. Tensing up the muscles on his legs and tail told him that those parts of his body were as strong as before. He felt no pain, just exhaustion and nauseousness. How dare this person try to tell me what to do? Tubba snapped open his eyes and stormed to his feet, shoving off the hand as it tried to prevent him from doing so. “I am fully fit,” Tubba snarled as he turned around, “I can decide whether to get up or not.” He found himself face to face with a purple Clubba. No.... not a purple Clubba. Tubba knew that purple was quite a rare scale colour for a Clubba, and that alone would have made the Clubba he was looking on unique. But as he took in the Clubba, he realized more and more not a Clubba. The general shape of the person he was looking on resembled a Clubba, sure, but as he looked closer, the muscles were tougher, the scales were thicker, the shape more burly, and the arms thicker. But the defining feature was the shell. While Clubbas had a smooth, curved carapace, often brown or black with a white rim, this person had spikes, long, white spikes, glinting in the sunlight, sticking out of the back of his shell. Tubba was looking on a live Spiked Clubba. “You’re a Spiked Clubba.” Tubba didn’t allow the orange lips of the purple Spiked Clubba to respond to his hotheaded anger. “Impossible,” Tubba was aware of other shapes at the corner of his vision, but he was too occupied with the Spiked Clubba. “You’re extinct.” “I reckon I’m one of the last two, yes,” the purple Spiked Clubba nodded. Tubba could tell by the duller nature of his scales, the way his hair lacked any sort of orange tint, but contrasted with the supple nature of his limbs and the strength obviously present in the frame, that this was a middle-aged Spiked Clubba, about thirty to thirty-five years old. “Censuses don’t usually note us, since we’re always on the move.” “Us? On the move?” Tubba took a look around, for the first time since staggering to his feet. He realized that he was surrounded by quite the motley crew - around twenty people of various species and various ages, ranging from old Shy Guys to young Bandits, with a few Koopas sprinkled in between. Looking beyond them, Tubba realized that he was on an ancient wooden ship, the green water of the sea visible over the wooden handrails of the ship. “Ah, where are my manners?” The Spiked Clubba shook his head with apparent contempt at himself. Extending out a large purple hand, he smiled: “I’m Gerald Spilkin, Captain Gerald to you, for I’m the captain of this crew. Welcome to the SS Mahruav.” As Tubba took the hand of Gerald, he was unsure of what to feel. On one hand, being on the run from the Clubba Kingdom had delivered him straight into a place of safety, but the sense of freedom he had leapt had vanished. Furthermore, Gerald would be highly unlikely to be welcoming to Tubba if he knew where Tubba had come from, and what Tubba had caused. If the SS Mahruav turned on him - in the middle of the sea, there was nowhere to go and no place to run. He would be caught, captured and returned back to Gusty Gulch, the place he least wanted to be. That sense of freedom he had leapt for. Where was it? He had seen escape from the fishbowl of Gusty Gulch, the subjects who regarded Chubba as superior and stronger, more fit for the throne, to carry on the legacy of the Clubbas. He had escaped from Gusty Gulch, but... The sense of freedom was still out there. Where was it? Where had it gone? What had Tubba lost in the brief period since ascending the SS Mahruav? He didn’t know the answers. He just had to find that sense of freedom.